Parents and their babies, including 15-month-old Lillian Baumgartner, left, 14-month-old Theo Hefley and 8-month old Sebastian Bertrand, right, practice their underwater swimming technique during a swim class at the Stewart Aquatic Center in Eugene, Ore. Wednesday/AP Photo/The Register-Guard by Chris Pietsch (who has Sandpoint, Idaho, roots and is featured Marianne Love's Slight Detour blog today here).

1. State lawmakers weren't surprised that a bill outlawing bestiality — prompted by a Seattle man's publicized death last summer after he had sex with a horse — all but became law Wednesday evening here.

2. Boris the Bison, a 2000-pound Yellowstone Park buffalo known for his legendary migration patterns of up to 200 miles round trip, has died here.

3. A Ferry County sheriff's detective who saved a state social worker from a machete-wielding parent last year was put on paid leave Tuesday, pending a second investigation into his personal association with several troubled teenage boys here.

4. Fire has destroyed the Wolf Lodge Bay home of C.J. Buck, who recently moved his world famous Buck Knives business from southern California to Post Falls, Idaho, here.

5. The former director of the Children’s House Montessori preschool in Whitefish, Mont., was arrested Wednesday and charged with sexually abusing five young boys at the school here.

6. IMHO-NW: Actor Ted S. McGregor Jr./Pacific Northwest Inlander (Rethinking Tom Foley's defeat), George Kennedy/Idaho Statesman (Don Knotts, R.I.P.), Gary Crooks/Spokesman-Review (Reasonable VA care), Ralph Bartholdt/St. Maries Gazette-Record (A walking soapbox), and Glenn Ferrell/Idaho Statesman (New definition of religious tolerance).

Online Poll: 49.6% of the respondents to a Seattle PI poll said they could care less if the Seattle Supersonics left town. (Meanwhile, the Sonics want no part of a public vote here.)

*Ex-Zag Ronny Turiaf scores career-high 10 points in L.A. Lakers win here.

*Kootenai County commissioners have asked Joseph Duncan's public defender to get pre-approval for all expenses related to the triple-homicide case here.

*A University of Idaho student was injured this morning in an explosion in a chemistry lab here.

Orbusmax Special: Renton High uses B+ GPA to decide which students can cheer for basketball team here.

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